A NASA-led study of a Four Corners methane “hot spot” has found that approximately half of the leaked methane emissions in the region are coming from just 10 percent of individual sources.
The “hot spot” was detected by researchers in past observations from a European satellite, according to an official release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The recent study has made it possible to quantify the magnitude of the overall emissions as well as the magnitudes of its sources.
Scientists from NASA’s JPL, the California Institute of Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Michigan participated in the nearly 18 month-long study whose findings were published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week.
The study was conducted using scientific instruments deployed by each of the participating organizations, including: two JPL airborne spectrometers, incorporating infrared detection technology, gas processing facilities, storage tanks, pipeline leaks, well pads and a coal mine venting shaft.
“Efficient mitigation is possible if we locate the strongest emitters,” the report states, adding that this work demonstrates the ability of real-time enhanced detection technology to provide immediate input for avoiding harmful emissions.
The up-to-date technology, paired with the right questions being asked, make the study “an exceptionally good piece of work,” said Bruce Milne, director of the Sustainability Studies Program at UNM.
“Remote sensing is becoming more high resolution. In this study they were able to make images of one to three meters of resolution. In the old days it might have been much cruder than that,” Milne said. "This really does show the feasibility of essentially real-time detection and management of the leaks.”
Pound for pound, methane is more potent than carbon as a greenhouse gas, and both are available in abundance in the United States, Milne said, but neither are as “dirty” and expensive as coal, which explains the rapid decline of the coal industry.
The downside of extracting natural gases for energy purposes is the inevitability of unwanted, harmful gas leaks, he said.
“This article we’re talking about shows that you can get smarter about managing the leaks,” Milne said, adding that, with the advancement in remote sensing technology at play, the accuracy of detection increases drastically.
“You’ve got both the precision of detecting the amounts that are coming out and the precision of knowing exactly where it’s coming out of the ground, because the Four Corners is a massive area,” Milne said. "You couldn’t drive around with ground-based camera systems and hope to find them all, you really need a platform in the air.”
Given the popularity of drones in the United States, it might be time to explore the possibility of equipping them with technology that would allow for the automatic monitoring of natural gas emissions, Milne said.
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“You could have an army of drones that are kind of attached to the infrastructure of the pumps and pipelines. They patrol it and report any leaks,” he said.
“As society moves ahead we’re going to be looking for environmentally friendly solutions that are economically viable and provide the energy we need. The more skillful society becomes at managing all of the risks from the clean energy, from fossil fuel energy, the better off the world is going to be,” he said.
Before recently returning to the UNM School of Law in order to teach Environmental Law, UNM Professor Cliff Villa said he spent 22 years with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where gathering reliable information from the field proved a consistent difficulty.
“The challenge, particularly in large geographic areas like the Four Corners region, is how to gather information directly from the ground and do that most efficiently,” Villa said.
The NASA study appears to have proved that airborne, remote sensing technologies are a viable method for gathering data, he said.
Traditionally, detecting air emissions from oil and gas facilities is a process of calculating what goes into the operation and what comes out, “and you do some math about what might be lost in the process,” Villa said. "And that might be a good assumption for what is emitted to the atmosphere.”
This NASA study, on the other hand, goes beyond calculating process knowledge, Villa said, by “looking specifically at individual pieces of equipment that might be heavy emitters, doing it very efficiently, and doing it in real time. And that can help regulators, and the industry itself, fix problems to reduce those emissions.”
Increased effectiveness of emissions monitoring also makes it easier for the facilities, who are essentially losing product, to make voluntary corrections immediately, he said.
It also gives regulators a better picture to work with in terms of resource allocation, Villa said.
“How you measure the actual emissions is a continuing issue. Even after you have a rule, how do you know that a facility is in compliance with it?” Villa said. “It makes it much easier for a facility to comply and it makes it easier, potentially, for a state or federal regulator to ensure compliance.”
The rules pertaining to new sources of methane emissions differ from those pertaining to existing sources, he said. It could be years before there’s a proposed and final rule for existing sources.
“You should not always rely on litigation to solve your problems,” Villa said, "if there is another solution, including a technological one.”
